Conversation in a Sand Skiff

                                By Moriah Organa

                                Disclaimer: Everbody who makes a physical appearance is Lucas' but one of the people
                                talked about is mine.
 

                                "Leia!" Han embraced her enthusiastically, then frowned slightly running hands over bare
                                shoulders, down a bare back past her waist until they finally encountered a chased metal
                                g-string. "What are you wearing?"

                                "Practically nothing." she replied drily.

                                He grinned lasciviously. "Wish I could see that."

                                "I'm glad I can." Lando put in.

                                Han turned towards his voice, an arm still around Leia. "Watch it 'old friend'." he warned.

                                "Lando's been a great help to us." Luke put in quietly, from somewhere off to the left. "Without
                                his recce work we wouldn't have had a chance of getting you out."

                                "I know. Chewie explained things." to Lando. "So what happened? Vader just march in and
                                make you an offer you couldn't refuse?"

                                "Something like that." the former Baron Administator sighed. "He said he needed you and the
                                others as bait for Luke. Once he had what he wanted he'd go. You were supposed to stay
                                on Cloud City with me."

                                "You believed that?" Han asked incredulously.

                                "Like I had a choice?" Han couldn't see but sensed Lando's helpless shrug. "I had my people
                                to think of - and Vader has a reputation for keeping his bargains."

                                From Leia, with a frown in her voice. "That's right, he's never broken his word before."

                                "Aw come on!" Han said. Vader the epitome of evil? she had to be kidding. But she wasn't

                                "No it's true! I know how he operates, Han, I've been fighting him for years."

                                "He's always kept his word?" That was Luke, there was something strange in his voice - an
                                intensity, like the answer mattered a lot to him.

                                "Yes, always." Leia answered. "Frankly I couldn't believe my ears when he told Lando he
                                was altering the bargain. It just wasn't like him."

                                Wasn't like him? How well did she know Vader anyway?

                                "He must want me very badly." Luke said softly. Han registered the strange new maturity in
                                his voice. Sensed that Luke had changed, changed a lot.

                                "Maybe because you're a Jedi?" Leia wondered.

                                "Maybe."

                                "Look, kid," Han turned towards the dark blur he knew was Luke. "you can't go around calling
                                yourself a Jedi Knight."

                                "I did kind of overstate." the kid admitted. "Actually I'm only a Padawan."

                                The unfamiliar word went through Han with a kind of shock, calling up strange echoes of
                                things long forgotten. "What did you say?"

                                "A Padawan, it's the Jedi term for an apprentice or student."

                                "Whose student?" Han exploded irritably, "the old man's dead, Luke, and one sabre lesson
                                doesn't make you a Jedi or a Padawan or anything!"

                                "I found another Teacher." he could hear the smile in the kid's voice. "And then a Padawan
                                Master found me."

                                "The Jedi were all destroyed by the Empire." Han argued. "Whoever these guys are they
                                *can't* be the real thing!"

                                "Trust me, Han," that suprisingly was Lando, "they are. I've seen Jinn fight, he's a Jedi all
                                right."

                                "Jinn?" Like the word Padawan that name had resonances. Somewhere, sometime he'd heard
                                it before.

                                "That's his name, Dai-Men Jinn." Luke explained.

                                "Dai-Men Jinn." Han repeated, the syllables shivering over his nerves. An image, a face tried
                                to form before his inner eye disipated like smoke at the sound of Leia's voice.

                                "Han?"

                                He looked down at her, snuggled into his side, he still couldn't quite make out her face but the
                                feel of her seemed to clear his head a little. "Nothing, I just thought I'd heard the name
                                somewhere before."

                                "Not likely." that was Luke. "He told me he hasn't gone by his real name in years."

                                *You musn't call him Dai-Men anymore, that name is dangerous to us all* a voice whispered in
                                memory, faded before he could identify it. Han shook his head hard in an effort to clear it.
                                "Yeah, well, maybe that carbon freeze's still playing tricks with my head."

                                "Master said hibernation was very disorienting." Luke soothed. "The confusion, like your
                                blindness, will pass."

                                "Soon, I hope." Han muttered, wrapping his arms around Leia's warm solidity and deliberately
                                shunting the disturbing, niggling not quite memories to the back of his mind where they
                                belonged. Focused determinedly on the present. "What about my ship, how's the Falcon? You
                                didn't let Lando mess her up did you, Chewie?"

                                "Me mess her up! *You're* the one who made all the crazy modifications!" Lando ranted, "No
                                wonder my people had trouble fixing the hyperdrive - it's a wonder they even *found* it!"

                                Han grinned. He was home.